General Discussion

It's a great review of the 1-20 content.

Just keep in mind, Age of Conan is 3 games.  1-20, 21-79, 80.  If people read reviews of Age of Conan that only deal with the first 20 levels, then they are going to be sorely surprised when they get off of Tortage.

Just about everything in the game that makes it an incredible game in the first 20 levels is gone or changed a great deal once you leave.  About the only thing that is constant through out the whole game, are the amazing graphics.

Originally posted by TheFirst109

Not to mention the fact that even if you weren't rushing, the 1-20 review should have come like 2-3 weeks ago. 1-20 is a complete joke in how long it takes to do, and then the game takes a nose dive in content. This is quite obvious to most who have played it and have experience with past mmo's. I agree with the others who said this is a blatant attempt to review the nicer side of the game.

Ok, I'm going to step in here for a minute and explain exactly why this is a 1-20 review:

First, yes, I realize that it doesn't take a long time to run through the content of 1-20 if you're running through the content to progress past it. It's a little bit different when you're playing a game to review it. When you're playing a game for the purposes of a review, you have to go much more slowly. You read every piece of dialogue, you go through unnecessary quests, and just generally spend time exploring.

Also, it isn't enough to move through the content with only one character in only one class. Ideally, you should move through the content with every class and see how it differs both in terms of story and functionality. In this case, I have played four different characters through the content.

Also, as you play those characters, you shoud also try playing on the different server types. In my case, I am playing on PvE, FFA PvP and RP.

It would be totally irresponsible to write a review based on a casual viewing or even a typical play-through. A reviewer needs to be as familiar with the body of what they are reviewing as possible.

Why haven't I reviewed the full game? Probably because I have four characters at and around level 20 and have barely ventured into the rest of the game. As the content is properly completed, we will update the review.

Hope that clears things up for you

Originally posted by JustBe

Originally posted by SaintViktor

It's the new trend now to only reviewi 1/4th of the game ? Yeah today I bought a new car and the car salesman had me sold when he only showed me 1/4th of the car. The rest of the car is missing though. No wheels, no engine, no brakes and the transmission needs a complete overhaul but other than that I am a happy buyer. If people are going to review the game then review ALL of it or don't even bother ya know ? 

 

It says level 1 - 20 review so I don't think anyone is stupid enough to take it as a full game review + everything in the first 20 levels is how the game mechanics work for the rest of the game so if you don't like it then you wont like it after.

Yeah I know what it says but some are just missing the point. Everyone and their cousin is writing level 1-20 reviews and selling this game just from the aspect of Tortage. Anyone who has played this game knows that Tortage is done well but the rest of the game seriously lacks on so many levels. I never heard of a game get so much hype just from levels 1-20  Noone is reviewing the entire game because they don't want to admit all the bad things there is after 20, that would be bad for the mmo industry right ? So I guess we can expect 3 more reviews from everyone, 20-40, 40-60 and 60-80 right ?

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by TheFirst109

Not to mention the fact that even if you weren't rushing, the 1-20 review should have come like 2-3 weeks ago. 1-20 is a complete joke in how long it takes to do, and then the game takes a nose dive in content. This is quite obvious to most who have played it and have experience with past mmo's. I agree with the others who said this is a blatant attempt to review the nicer side of the game.

Ok, I'm going to step in here for a minute and explain exactly why this is a 1-20 review:

First, yes, I realize that it doesn't take a long time to run through the content of 1-20 if you're running through the content to progress past it. It's a little bit different when you're playing a game to review it. When you're playing a game for the purposes of a review, you have to go much more slowly. You read every piece of dialogue, you go through unnecessary quests, and just generally spend time exploring.

Also, it isn't enough to move through the content with only one character in only one class. Ideally, you should move through the content with every class and see how it differs both in terms of story and functionality. In this case, I have played four different characters through the content.

Also, as you play those characters, you shoud also try playing on the different server types. In my case, I am playing on PvE, FFA PvP and RP.

It would be totally irresponsible to write a review based on a casual viewing or even a typical play-through. A reviewer needs to be as familiar with the body of what they are reviewing as possible.

Why haven't I reviewed the full game? Probably because I have four characters at and around level 20 and have barely ventured into the rest of the game. As the content is properly completed, we will update the review.

Hope that clears things up for you

I think that is a fair call, also this article is called " level 1 - 20 review", at least these guys havn't played it for a day and given it a 9/10 for the entire game like others have done.

I'm not sure it's an entirely fair review. Let me qualify that by saying that while yes it says only the first 20 levels, taken out of context this may sound like a fairly sizable chunk of the game. Thinking about other games like EQ, EQ2 it could well take a few days to hit 20. I hit 20 in AoC in less than one day. Considering that 1 day vs. the rest of the playtime over the life of an MMO.. this is actually a very small part of the game and as such this should be made adequately clear.

I also feel obligated to point out that auto-follow is actually in the game and does work on occasion. It is however much like many things in the game bugged. The problem is that auto-follow '/follow' only works if the group has been formed after the follower and followee have zoned into the same instance. If you die, zone again, or look at the avatar funny the function will break and you have to reform the group again. Great stuff for a AAA MMO eh?

In hopes that some of the dear readers won't be taken in by a perhaps incomplete review: please bear in mind that AoC while offering a nice change for the first 30 odd levels; quickly diminishes over time and after you get to that point where you want to craft, build cities, siege, etc... it just doesn't deliver what is on the box. In terms of things like crafting, it was bugged to the point of not working at all for nearly the first month. Vanguard had better crafting at the start than AoC has now. There is the usual fare of completely broken quests (as in most MMOs), but in the case of AoC it is a bit more glaring because after you get out of the starter area and begin leveling up .. you very quickly begin to realize just how small the world actually is. With so few travel/exploration options, a completely bugged zone can become a significant deal. AAA indeed. It very much reminds me of how EQ2 was at release where you were completely sick of Commonlands after spending weeks running around it. In AoC there is no large open world. You cannot travel to Shadazar (known to some as the Wicked.)

I do agree with the review about customer service. I'm actually dealing with an issue myself now.... 16 hours and waiting....

Buyer beware.

Des

Thanks for a fair review, Jon.

I've been playing AoC since launch and it seems like there are an inordinant number of haters for this game that flat out lie about this game to give it a bad reputation.  And to respond to those haters, the fans of AoC have become fanboys that don't acknowledge any issues with the game in order to attempt to balance things out.

Jon just gave us a fair review for AoC.  The game has issues - but it's fun if you get it to run.  I think of AoC's current state as a platform to build off of, and I think it's good.  The next few months will tell us if Funcom plans to build onto their platform quick enough to make AoC worthwhile.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by TheFirst109

Not to mention the fact that even if you weren't rushing, the 1-20 review should have come like 2-3 weeks ago. 1-20 is a complete joke in how long it takes to do, and then the game takes a nose dive in content. This is quite obvious to most who have played it and have experience with past mmo's. I agree with the others who said this is a blatant attempt to review the nicer side of the game.

Ok, I'm going to step in here for a minute and explain exactly why this is a 1-20 review:

First, yes, I realize that it doesn't take a long time to run through the content of 1-20 if you're running through the content to progress past it. It's a little bit different when you're playing a game to review it. When you're playing a game for the purposes of a review, you have to go much more slowly. You read every piece of dialogue, you go through unnecessary quests, and just generally spend time exploring.

Also, it isn't enough to move through the content with only one character in only one class. Ideally, you should move through the content with every class and see how it differs both in terms of story and functionality. In this case, I have played four different characters through the content.

Also, as you play those characters, you shoud also try playing on the different server types. In my case, I am playing on PvE, FFA PvP and RP.

It would be totally irresponsible to write a review based on a casual viewing or even a typical play-through. A reviewer needs to be as familiar with the body of what they are reviewing as possible.

Why haven't I reviewed the full game? Probably because I have four characters at and around level 20 and have barely ventured into the rest of the game. As the content is properly completed, we will update the review.

Hope that clears things up for you

I understand where you are coming from with this, wanting to review the game in whole.

However, what is irresponsible is releasing a highly unfinished product. It should be relayed to your readers in that sense, if you are buying this game you are buying a product that has content up to around lvl 40 and then after that have fun grinding. I play the game and I stomach it, but when you review something review it in its entirety as it is presented to the public, not how it is as content is eventually added to make up for the lack of it.

"As the content is properly completed, we will update the review" to me just says that you know this game has nothing to review for past a certain level - and for that it should be fairly given a 0/10 for this moment levels 40-80. I have to respectfully agree with the others who have posted that if this were a game like everquest 2 where getting to 20 actually took some time when it first came out then that feat is worth a review, but you gave a review for part of the game that took me 6 hours to do at a casual pace.

~Danke

One more thing I want to mention.

The biggest disappointment for me was lack of group content. I got to level 35 and finished Sanctum. That was the only decent instance that was group centered.

I understand that I am not 80 or even 50. However, I WAS able to do some very interesting and exciting group runs in all other MMO I played at level 20-30.

I can only do that many solo quests.. or even group quests. I want more variety. May be I just want to kill mobs, do dungeon runs, craft etc. But that's not possible in AoC. I found the Epic instances to be a joke. It's the same as a regular instance but mobs are harder. SAME layout, same everything. That's a very LAZY approach - let's take what we have, make the mobs harder and call it Epic..

Canceled my subscription

Just to warn everyone now. From lvl 55 to 60 is a dead zone in the game. There are NO quests to do at those lvls so its all grinding....i had to make another character so it didn't feel like i was grinding out 5 lvls.  Thats the only part i hate about the game is that area of lvling. The rest of the game kicked ass.